The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for placing advertising on wine and spirits bottles, which provides both advertising and a means to protect the bottles from damage in a shopping bag or box.
The use of bottle advertisers has long been recognized. As a result, various inventions have been developed to effect this practice. Some of these include: U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,650 to Follett; U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,819 to Jones; U.S. Pat. No. 2,132,236 to Greene; U.S. Pat. No. 1,999,011 to Wasser; U.S. Pat. No. 1,536,445 to Maupai; and U.S. Pat. No. 1,473,313 to Piatt.
Prior art bottle advertisers have all been adapted for mounting on the bottle when it is stocked on a store shelf. Since these advertising devices are designed for mounting to a bottle prior to sale, they are limited in their advertising space because it is not desirable to obscure the label of the bottle with the advertising device. Therefore, these bottle advertisers are designed to fit on the neck of a bottle. Consequently, advertisers have a limited amount of space upon which to place advertising material. Efforts to increase the amount of advertising space have resulted in the invention of devices that are less easily manufactured or assembled, or which require more room for shipping or storage.
A more desirable bottle advertiser would be one that can be easily and quickly attached to a bottle at the point of sale. Since such an advertiser could be utilized after a consumer has purchased the bottle, and obscuring the label is therefore no longer of any concern, the advertiser can be designed to surround the base of the bottle. Such an advertiser would serve the purpose of providing more space upon which to place advertising material, but also serve the practical purpose of protecting bottles from one another, thereby preventing breakage, chafing, and noise, which can often result from the presence of multiple bottles in a single bag or box.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to create a bottle advertiser that encircles the base of a bottle, thereby providing more space upon which to place advertising material. It is a further object of the present invention to take advantage of the location of the bottle advertiser to also employ it as a device for protecting bottles from one another. Because such an advertiser may obscure labels on the bottle, it is yet another object of the present invention to create an advertiser that is easy to assemble or adjust to the size of the bottle at the point of sale of the bottle.
The invention relates to a bottle packaging sleeve comprising a sheet of cushioning material having a first and second sheet end couplable to each other, and an interior face and an exterior face, the exterior face having at least a portion thereof provided with informational material, the sheet being sufficiently elastic to be fitted onto a bottle.
The sheet may be an expandable material, which may be fashioned from a corrugated paper or plastic material. The corrugated material may have a facing portion located over a furrowed portion, where at least one section of the facing portion has been removed or at least one slit has been cut in the facing portion. Alternatively, the expandable material may be fashioned from a perforated material or a calendered material. Additionally, the interior face of the sheet may be coated with a friction enhancing coating. The sheet may be generally circular in cross-section and fittable onto a cylindrical bottle.
In some embodiments, the first and second sheet ends may be coupled to each other by a bottle girth adaptor. The bottle girth adaptor can be a tab having two tab portions, where one tab portion is coupled to the other tab portion via incremental, detachable adhesive sections. Alternatively, the bottle girth adaptor can be a tab formed at the first sheet end and a slot formed at the second sheet end, where the tab is secured in the slot by an adhesive or a plurality of barbs on the tab. Alternatively, the bottle girth adaptor can be a section of adhesive located on the first sheet end, the second sheet end, or both.
The invention also relates to a method of situating advertising material on a bottle comprising sliding the above-described bottle packaging sleeve onto a bottle. The invention may also include the step of adjusting the sleeve to the size of the bottle by employing a bottle girth adaptor, where the step of employing the adaptor may be detaching incremental adhesive sections until the sleeve slides around the base of the bottle.
The invention also relates to a method of mounting advertising material on a bottle comprising wrapping around a bottle the above-described bottle packaging sleeve. The invention may also include the step of adjusting the sleeve to the size of the bottle by employing a bottle girth adaptor. The step of employing a bottle girth adaptor may comprise sliding a tab into a slot and securing the tab in the slot with adhesive or a plurality of barbs on the tab.
Alternatively, the step of employing a bottle girth adaptor may comprise securing an extension of the first sheet end to an extension of the second sheet end with an adhesive.
The invention also relates to a method of advertising comprising the steps of fabricating bottle sleeves that each have an exterior face, imprinting advertising information on the exterior faces, distributing the bottle sleeves to retail outlets licensed to sell bottles of wine or liquor, or to merchandising companies, and employees of the retail outlets mounting the bottle sleeves to bottles of wine or liquor sold by the retail outlets at the time of packaging individual bottles for taking by a purchaser, or employees of merchandising companies mounting the bottle sleeves to bottles of wine or liquor when merchandising the bottles.